Lawmakers and legal experts yesterday called for an investigation into the involvement of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Deputy Secretary-General Alex Tsai (蔡正元) in the case of self-confessed Chinese spy William Wang Liqiang (王立強), saying that Tsai breached the Anti-infiltration Act (反滲透法) by allegedly collaborating with China to interfere in the recent presidential and legislative elections.
New Power Party Chairman Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said he asked the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office to initiate an investigation into Tsai, as he believed the evidence showed that China was using its “representative in Taiwan” to meddle in the spy case and influence the outcome of the elections.
The act prohibits people from acting on the instructions of “infiltration sources” or receiving funding from them for illegal lobbying or disrupting elections, “so our judiciary must find out in this case, whether China provided instructions or funding” to Tsai and whether he used threats or money to make Wang recant his story and framed the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for it, Hsu said.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
DPP legislators Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) and Wang Ding-yu (王定宇) echoed the call, with Lee saying that Tsai appears to have contravened the National Security Act (國家安全法), as well as laws governing elections and referendums.
“Prosecutors only have to find out the role played by Alex Tsai, whether he was acting on behalf of the Chinese government. If so, then he broke the law and this can be prosecuted under the Anti-infiltration Act,” Lee said.
“This case has clear indications of the KMT collaborating with China to work out a deceptive scheme and it tried to falsely accuse the DPP of orchestrating the whole thing,” Wang Ding-yu said in media interviews and on Coco Hot News (辣新聞152), a political affairs program on Formosa TV..
Australian Strategic Policy Institute researcher Alex Joske reported that Tsai worked with Chinese businessman Sun Tianqun (孫天群) to prepare a scripted statement that William Wang Liqiang was requested to read aloud, with Joske presenting screen grabs showing that it was sent out via WeChat and other messaging apps.
According to Joske’s report, Tsai and Sun reportedly said that they represented that KMT and they promised William Wang Liqiang that China would no longer prosecute him and that businesspeople would pay his debts if he recanted the spy claims and followed their instructions.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
RSS